The present invention relates to an optical pickup apparatus, a recording/reproducing apparatus with the optical pickup apparatus, an optical element, and an information recording/reproducing method.
Recently, as the practical application of the short wavelength red laser, a DVD which is a high density optical information recording medium (called also optical disk) having almost the same dimension as a CD (compact disk) and the larger capacity, comes into the production. In a DVD recording/reproducing apparatus, the numerical aperture NA on the optical disk side of an objective lens when a semiconductor laser of 650 nm is used, is 0.6-0.65. The DVD has a track pitch of 0.74 μm, and the minimum pit length of 0.4 μm, and is in densification, in which dimensions are lower than a half as compared to the CD having the track pitch of 1.6 μm and the minimum pit length of 0.83 μm. Further, in the DVD, in ordered to suppress the coma which is generated when the optical disk is inclined to the optical axis, to be small, the transparent substrate thickness is 0.6 mm, which is the half of the transparent substrate thickness of the CD.
Further, other than the above-described CD or DVD, various standard optical disks in which the light source wavelength or the transparent substrate thickness is different, for example, CD-R, RW (post script type compact disk), VD (video disk), MD (mini-disk), MO (photo-electro-magnetic disk), etc., come in the market and are spread. Further, the wavelength of the semiconductor laser is further shortened, and the short wavelength blue laser having the emission wavelength of about 400 nm is being into practical use. When the wavelength is shortened, even if the same numerical aperture as that of the DVD is used, the capacity of the optical information recording medium can be further increased.
Further, in the same dimension as the CD which is the above-described conventional optical information recording medium, the development of a plurality of optical information recording media, such as the CD-R in which recording and reproducing can be carried out, or the DVD whose recording density is increased, in which the transparent substrate thickness of the recording surface, or the wavelength of the laser light for recording and reproducing is different, is advanced, therefore, it is required that the recording and reproducing by the same optical pickup can be conducted to these optical information recording medium. Accordingly, various optical pickups which have a plurality of laser light sources corresponding to the using wavelength, and by which the laser light is converged onto the recording surface by the same objective lens by the necessary numerical aperture, are proposed (for example, Japanese Tokkaihei No. 8-55363, Japanese Tokkaihei No. 10-92010, etc.).
In the above description, in Japanese Tokkaihei No. 9-54973, an optical system using a hologram optical element in which 635 nm is used for the transmitted light (zero ordered diffracted ray) and 785 nm is used for −first ordered diffracted ray, and an optical system using a hologram optical system in which 635 nm is used for +first ordered diffracted ray and 785 nm is used for the transmitted light (zero ordered diffracted ray), are disclosed. Further, in Japanese Tokkaihei No. 10-283668, an optical system in which, the wavelength is 650 nm, a hologram ring lens is transmitted at 100%, and when 780 nm, the light is first ordered diffracted by the hologram ring lens, is disclosed.
However, in these hologram element and hologram-shaped ring lens, when diffraction efficiency of zero ordered light is made to be 100% for the wavelength on one side, there surely is a limitation for diffraction efficiency of +first ordered diffracted ray or of −first ordered diffracted ray for the wavelength on the other side, and thereby, desirable high diffraction efficiency can not be obtained, a loss of a quantity of light is caused, and efficiency of using a quantity of light is worsened, which has been a problem. When a loss of a quantity of light is caused, a laser of higher power is required, especially in recording of information.
Further, in the hologram element and the hologram-shaped ring lens, when diffraction efficiency of zero ordered light is made to be 100% for the wavelength on one side, and when diffraction efficiency of +first ordered diffracted ray or of −first ordered diffracted ray is made to be great by prohibiting zero ordered light from being transmitted as far as possible, for the wavelength on the other side, the hologram has been made to be as deep as 3.8-5.18 μm. Therefore, when a function of a hologram optical element or of a hologram-shaped ring lens is integrated in an objective lens in particular, it is very difficult to process a metal mold and to mold, which has been a problem.
Further, the present inventors previously proposed an objective lens (Japanese Tokuganhei No. 9-286954) which can structures a optical pickup which is composed of a plurality of divided surface which are divided into concentric circular-like ones, and in which each divided surface is aberration corrected to the diffraction limit to a plurality of light sources having different wavelength, and/or to the transparent substrate having the different thickness of the recording surface, and the structure is simplified. This objective lens has a function by which a necessary aperture can be automatically obtained corresponding to the using wavelength and/or the thickness of the transparent substrate. However, when a laser/detector integrated unit in which the laser light source and light detector are integrated, is used, there is a problem that a case occurs that the detection can not be correctly conducted due to a flare light entering into the light detector. This is conspicuous particularly in the laser/detector integrated unit of a type by which the light flux is deflected and introduced into the light detector by using the hologram. Further, when high speed recording is carried out in recordable disks in the DVD system (DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, etc.) or recordable disks in the CD system (CD-R, CD-RW, etc.), because a partial light beam becomes flare, the efficiency of use of the light amount is bad as compared to the optical system using the exclusive use lens, therefore, it is necessary to increase the power of laser light source.
To both the DVD and CD whose using wavelength and transparent substrate thickness are different from each other, various interchangeable optical systems, in which one objective lens is used for recording and/or reproducing the information without generating large spherical aberration or chromatic aberration, are proposed. However, the optical systems which are in practical use, are structured such that the divergence degree of the divergent light, flux from the light source is weakened by a coupling lens, or the divergent light flux is made to the parallel light flux or the weak convergent light flux, and the light flux is converged onto the information recording surface through the objective lens and the transparent substrate of the optical information recording medium, and accordingly, 2 lenses of the coupling lens and the objective lens are necessary. Accordingly, it is difficult that the size of the optical pickup apparatus is reduced to be small and thin, and there is a problem that the cost is increased.
On the one hand, as described above, various optical disks except the CD and DVD are spread, and therefore, an optical system which is interchangeable to these optical disks, and whose structure is simple, and the optical pickup apparatus provided with the optical system are necessary.